Design optimization procedures for fiber reinforced plastic bridges

A simplified optimization procedure is described for a novel fiber reinforc ed plastic bridge system. The bridge system is modeled using a transformed anisotropic plate that is discretized using the Ritz method. This provides a structural model that is incorporated into a stiffness-based optimization algorithm using the optimality criteria method. The resulting procedure pr ovides a useful design tool that can be used to produce a minimum weight de sign without resorting to finite-element analysis, which is only used to ch eck the strength of the final design. A two-lane highway bridge serves as a demonstration problem.